Short Story & Photo by Austin Valley, Portland

They arrive at night. A flash in the dark. Two curtains mirrored in light split to a foot. A pointed toe cranes from sky to land.  A hand and an arm.  Another foot.  A man.  Followed by a second.  Both are cloaked in reflection only observed like one might see the moon shrouded in clouds.  Crooked in their gait, these two men… gods… aliens, whatever one may conceive in an infinite realm of ideas, emerge from the shadow.  It is hard to describe what these men do further than to state that they arrive.  And a thick pulse erodes the wind to a dull relic, numb to it’s own indifference.

Pulling threads of error from the sands, the men walk.  Nights paint long stretches of sand dressed in the men’s footsteps.  And at times the men fight. In a misbelief, one will take as an insult:  a dirty joke.  It should be noted these men frequently clown with one another during their walks and periods of standing.  The men will yell, a sound so heavy and crippling, deep craggy horns of opposition.  The winds bow from the sea and echo through their calls and the men dance hatred on the ground.  But the birds never fly away.  And their fight ends.  The last note escaped.  Their presence grows loud in the silence, though now it’s day and they are gone.

Austin Valley makes films and music in PDX, and writes stories that make creative writing majors angry because they can’t think of anything about them to trash that doesn’t apply twice as much to their own work.